The reception for CTA President at he Rayburn House in Washington DC on Sept. 9, 2019. photo- tibet.net

DHARAMSHALA, Sept. 10: The President of the exile Tibetan government known officially as the Central Tibetan Administration, Dr. Lobsang Sangay on Monday engaged with diplomats at the Capitol hill in Washington to lobby and touch bases for a revised and updated Tibet Policy Act, the first significant bill on Tibet that was passed into law in the United States in 2002.

The head of the Tibetan polity was hosted a reception at the Rayburn House by the House Democratic Partnership. The reception was attended by HDP Chair Congressman David Price, Congresswoman Judy Chu, Congresswoman Terri Sewell, Congressman Ted Yoho, Congressman Gerry Connolly, and Carl Gershman, the president of the National Endowment for Democracy as well as the Vice President of the International Republican Institute. Presidents of the Tibetan Association of NY, Philadelphia, and Capitol area, Vice President of International Campaign for Tibet, all the staffers of the Office of Tibet – DC, and many other Congressional staffers also attended the event.

Congressman Price who visited Dharamshala last month expressed his support for Tibet and said that issue has always been a bipartisan one. Speaker Nancy Pelosi who joined the gathering later also espoused her support for Tibet, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and the Central Tibetan Administration. Pelosi said she would help make the new Tibet Policy Act a priority in Congress.

Dr. Sangay also met with Congressman Jim McGovern, the chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, and Jon Stivers, the staff director of the CECC a day earlier. “They discussed the new Tibet Policy Act, which will be announced formally within a few weeks,” CTA run Tibet.net said on Monday.

The CTA President in August during the 5-50 Youth Forum said his administration will lobby to pass a revised and updated version of the Tibet Policy Act as part of the larger initiative to “reorient and reorganize” the Tibetan movement and its structure in view of the changing dynamics such as the shifting base of the demography of the exile Tibetan population, global geo-political changes from the Tibetan perspective, in order to strengthen the Tibetan struggle in the years to come.

The United States has passed two significant legislations on Tibet till date. The Tibet Policy Act of 2002, which among other matters requires the appointment of a Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues, whose “central objective is to promote substantive dialogue between the Government of the People’s Republic of China and the Dalai Lama or his representatives”, and the Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act of 2018 which calls for the American government to limit access for Chinese authorities who bar U.S. diplomats, journalists, and tourists to Tibet.